On a couple occasions last year, I asked Blackhawks forward Frank Nazar about being okay with shifts ending in a draw. The idea that a 50-50 shift can be a win in the bigger picture. Jason Dickinson’s stall was next to Nazar’s, and he chuckled when I asked each time, once asking Nazar if he had “heard that somewhere before.”
The concept of being willing and able to play break-even hockey is a hard one for many young players to grasp. Especially when those young players are struggling to score goals.
And even more when that group of young players is struggling to win games.
Last night, the Blackhawks played the kind of grind-it-out game that head coach Jeff Blashill has talked about them needing to play frequently in recent weeks. They went almost 33 minutes of game time between either team scoring a goal — a good thing for them defensively.
We’ve seen them start to get antsy in those long stretches and try to do something that isn’t there, which too often costs them a goal the other direction. Which, too often, has cost them games.
There were certainly moments last night where the Blackhawks tried to make a fancy play that wasn’t there. They had their share of less-than-ideal turnovers. But they didn’t make them in places where it cost them. And they busted their butts to defend when they did make a mistake.
It wasn’t pretty. But, as basketball fans say in March, survive and advance. The Blackhawks survived their mistakes and played hard enough to get a desperately needed win.
After the game, veteran defenseman Ian Cole said those are the kind of “boring” games the Blackhawks need to be comfortable playing — and learning how to win.
“I think if you watch a playoff game for instance, there’s periods, half of games where nothing really happens, right?” Cole said. “It’s a boxing match. Yeah, of course you want to land your punches, but you also don’t want to open yourself up to get tagged with a haymaker. So there’s a give and take there.
“And being able to be patient while still kind of waiting for your chances, checking for your chances, that’s what a lot of really good teams do. We just played Florida, we played Tampa, we played Vegas earlier, we played Carolina. They just keep rinse, repeat over and over and over again. And then eventually something shows up and they can take advantage of it. That’s good for us to see that that is a pattern that can work for us.”
I asked Blashill about that idea after speaking with Cole, and the Blackhawks’ head coach echoed the comments of his elder defenseman.
“I think that’s the hardest thing for young players to learn,” Blashill said. “I think to learn that it’s okay for a shift for nothing to happen. I’ve said this before. Henrik Zetterberg said that to me years and years when I was an American league coach about Detroit and the playoffs and once young guys learn that it’s okay to go out there and not much happens either way, that’s the way it is in hockey and especially as you get into real hockey. So if you check hard and then you look for your opportunities to pounce … it’s just a big lesson that we have to continue to learn and we still have moments where we didn’t handle it perfect, but it’s a big lesson that we have to continue to learn.”
There’s a lot these young Blackhawks still need to learn. We’re reminded of that too regularly — and were even more this week. But one of the more important takeaways I had from Thursday night’s win was the collective playing through a grind against a good team and coming out with the win.
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